epic romance
by Suk-fong
Summary: No one cares about twenty-three to twenty-eight. They grow up, stopping fucking around and give up. Not everyone is an epic love story. It had to happen right?


**disclaimer** : disclaimed.  
 **dedication:** Breadan my first love. you broke a lot of shit asshole.  
 **notes:** Worst smut I ever wrote. But also shit I am just done with this story. And the idea of first love happening in seventh/eighth grade. it's puppy love darling #iamtoooldforthisfandomjfc  
 **summary:** It isn't romantic. He broke a nose.

* * *

She leaves before it's five in the morning; this is both peculiar because one she likes her sleep, two she's never cared before if she's the one who leaves after a one-night stand and three, this is her apartment. Everything points to him being the one who leaves but she is the one who slips out of his chokehold that other people (more romantic people) would call a cuddle.

She is the one who wiggles into the jeans tossed on the floor, finds her thong underneath his socks. She is the one who grabs her bag and creeps out of her room and finds her mother on the sofa, with wrinkles around her eyes and purple bruises showing her mother hasn't had enough sleep in a long time. She is the one who kisses her mother on the cheek good bye and gets one first train out of Grand Central Station going straight to New Haven Connecticut.

She's an artist, with all that implies and high school and New York City are far behind her as the train pulls away. Last night was the grand finale, something she fantasized about for years when she started realizing what the heat between her thighs meant and how when she touched herself slowly and unsurely, new to her sexuality, it was his long fingers she imagined instead of hers.

She's always been left but this time she leaves. She worked hard to get into Yale-ever since Topanga showed her the pamphlets and fliers, talking about the art program, how it's renowned for its oil painting. There's something like regret in her best friend's mom's voice as she talked about Yale, but it's not her business and it's not her baggage.

Either way, she's heading down a path she's never gone before. And her mother hasn't any advice, besides 'No regrets'. It's sound advice, one she decides to keep close to her heart. And one she jumpstarted at the last party of the summer before they all go their separate ways. Farkle is headed to New England, he got into Harvard for business and no one is surprised. Zay is sticking around New York, taking up classes at NYU trying acting. He's grown into his skin like Farkle, taller and he could be one of those leading man types, but he's got a smart mouth that gets him in trouble. It'll be interesting to see if he's one of those burn out bright and fast flaming types. Riley surprised them all; she's taking a gap year and traveling Europe. It was something she and her had talked about, dreaming up plans to see the world without parents, or boyfriends, or whoever holding them back from really knowing what failure feels like. It will be different, and there was a weekend once she told her she's not going to Europe, because she got into Yale-Yale which was a prayer and so many hours of overtime, and her mom selling the car-why do they even have a car in the city?-just to get tuition, because the scholarship won't cover everything and she can't give up Yale for Europe and backpacking. She just can't.

So Riley boarded a plane to Europe yesterday morning, leaving her and the boys to drink jack and whiskey on a fire escape and think of who they'll be when Thanksgiving comes.

This is growing up, leaving and this isn't the type of leaving that hurts. No it grows in her stomach, like vertigo, she's freefalling but she's got wings and now everyone who'd catch her is far away and that should be scary but it isn't. It's exciting.

She doesn't look back through the tunnel that severs the chord between her and New York. There are bigger and brighter things ahead of her.

She can't wait.

* * *

When he wakes up, he knows instantly he's alone. Which is weirder than it should be because he distinctly remembers falling asleep next to a lithe body, tangled and sweaty from sex, playing with blonder hair as he thinks this is the beginning. But he wakes up in her bedroom, which while screams the essence of a blonde stick of dynamite, always on a short fuse ready to blow, is very void of her.

He finds his clothes, tripping over the condom wrapper he thought he threw more or less in the direction of the carnage, but evidently missed. He finds two more empty foil wrappers closer to the white plastic trash can and he's more satisfied with his aim. Although it feels like a balloon burst in chest, because only two of the condoms are from his wallet. The other one is from her bedside table drawer. And it's stupid because it was just sex, and he's had and she's had it and she's eighteen and he's nineteen and it's just a simple thing. It's a one night stand and holy fuck he's overthinking it.

He's had a one night stand before; he's had casual sex before. It's hard to do relationships when Riley is there at his shoulder, saying 'I love you' without knowing if she means it; and he is a good guy, and he knows dating other girls would break her heart but he get blue balled like the rest of them and casual sex is easy and simple and it's only a quick release but that was more than a quick release that was a line crossed.

It's a very simple line he drew; one that he doesn't remembering drawing but it's always been there. He doesn't sleep with her-he doesn't touch her. He doesn't do anything with her because she's his ex-girlfriend's best friend. His friend or tiny ball of pancakes or terror depending on how he's feeling and how she's gotten under his skin that day with finesse and a spark or with a drill and a sledgehammer. And that line in the whiskey, and rye and maybe some coke in there too-but he's pretty sure they started drinking it straight after Farkle showed them what actually happens with Mentos and coke.

He likes his lines, he likes his boxes. He likes everything in a very neat place because then it's easy to keep things in check. It's easy to keep his temper if he remembers he's not Texas thirteen year old anymore, but a nineteen year old from New York. It's easy to remember that he's supposed to be patient for Riley, wait for her once she's found herself-because as almost two years older than her, he's supposed to already have found himself- and when she comes back they'll finally figure out how to be together and not feel like some regurgitated love story. But he just blurred all those lines because while Riley can have fun in Europe and he can date while she's gone, no one will be able to ignore the blonde in between them, filling the space like air he needs to breathe.

Which is overdramatic and wrong. It's a bad metaphor, she isn't air. She's a girl, and he's a boy and it was sex and it's something to forget about and he feels only a lot guilty and a lot like he did something wrong as he sneaks out of her mother's apartment, waving awkwardly at her grandmother who is making pancakes in the kitchen.

When he knew he would fall asleep beside the girl who had giving him several unfortunate tents over high school with her short skirts and high heels and her red lips, he knew the next morning when he woke up it wouldn't be like puzzle pieces falling together. He wasn't sure what he'd be expecting but this is more or less in line with what he expected.

It doesn't matter anyway-it was just sex.

* * *

Classes are hard. If you're expecting down time, just forget it. She understands this very well. She's got five lectures all three hours plus twenty-five hours of studio time every week plus readings and weekly skype sessions with Riley whenever Riley gets near a computer. She just doesn't have time.

Shawn and her mom have gotten enough so that the first year she doesn't have to work, and she doesn't have that big of a loan it's only five thousand. But she needs to keep her scholarship which means anything less than a eight-five is basically flunk out of Ivy League and she already knows she doesn't belong because they wear polos and uggs and go to Starbucks because they can instead of bringing a warn travel mug and teabags and getting free hot water because she just doesn't have the money.

Everything is exhausting and she knows she was so, so excited about going to Yale but right now she wants to be in New York on her lumpy sofa, with her mom eating almost expired ice cream and watching shitty reality TV shows because that is so much better than this. But she can't call her mom and let her know she's scared because Roxy never went to college, she packed her bags from Iowa and made it to L.A and got knocked up before moving to New York and staying there forever, a mom at nineteen and a half and that's only a year older than she is now and if she's having trouble breathing looking at the prices of text books and she knows she has to sell a kidney because they just don't have the money than how on earth did her mom do it?

She needs to talk to someone-she knows this. But the thing is Riley is in Europe, any adult she knows will tell her mom. Farkle wouldn't understand neither would Zay and she knows she should talk about it and there are people at school to talk to but she doesn't want to talk to a stranger. So she calls him. He's older and he's been there-sort of.

' _Hello?_ ' Josh's voice is tinny and distorted but it feels like home and it makes her stomach settle. They're both on the same side of eighteen but the thing about growing up five years is that things that she wanted desperately at fourteen don't mean much when she's eighteen and she knows exactly what Josh is.

Josh and her were never inevitable, never there for the long haul. He was too old ( because yeah he was seventeen when she was fourteen but he was in grade twelve when she was in grade seven so there's more stuff than just age), and she was too young and if you want to call it a first love you could but you'd be missing the fact that someone where crush just fizzled to friendship because not everyone ends up with who they had a crush on in middle school-in fact she knows a grand total of one couple who can say that is their reality.

'Hey,' she smiles into the iPhone (out of date and two seasons from the current one but it's still an iPhone so she doesn't care.) and everything feels easier. Maybe it's the fact that Josh has done this before, went to NYU and got his degree and is currently bumming it up at Pembrooke doing his masters because finding a job with just a bachelor's is impossible and he was smart enough so…

Maybe it's like he could be an older brother-true one she did sort of really want to bang for a brief period of time. Maybe it's because he knows her enough to say he knows her but he doesn't actually know her.

Whatever it is, it's enough.

* * *

Dallas is weird. He's from Austin but people only hear New York in his voice, and so maybe it has been a long time since he's lived in Texas, and maybe he slurs his words and talks faster and crisper, like there's a limit on words per sentence and he needs to get everything out as precisely as he can with as little words as possible.

He's from Austin but no one believes him because New York is tattooed on him; his jokes are harsh and his humor is sarcastic and dry, sharpened with spending too much time with girls with razor sharp wit and boys who don't stop running their mouths.

He starts saying he's from New York just to please them and it feels a bit wrong because he's not he's from Austin and it sucks. He's too Texas to be a full New Yorker, but he's not Texas enough to be from Texas according to the pretty girl with brown hair and doe eyes smiling over her red solo cup.

It's something he's doing now; New York and Riley and her day dream romance is far away, and he doesn't want a relationship (he doesn't really know what he wants, but no one else does so who cares) but he's horny as hell and that girl seems into him, so he follows her back to her dorm room, holding hands and laughing. She tastes like cherry wine coolers and he knows he tastes like beer, and he fucks the girl (he doesn't remember her name and that should make him feel bad but it doesn't because it's college, and it's the third week and sex is sex and he's never going to see her again so whatever.) in her twin bed while her roommate isn't there.

He steals a pen from her desk (it's pink and sparkly) and when it's closer to five in the morning, he makes the walk across campus before the sun raises and when he gets to his dorm room, he showers and sleeps.

He only wakes up before three because Farkle keeps calling him because of their Call of Duty showdown. It's a nice three house of video game violence where he snipes Zay and Farkle continuously. They're all in different places but they're all in the same place in cyber space. It's nice or something.

He likes his courses too. He's always been hands on and independent, and this time he gets to learn almost at his own pace. He talks to his profs and his TAs and they like him. He's thinking of large animals-like horses or cows, being a farm vet. They tell him what courses he needs to take after the first year of general science and what grades he needs to keep up. It makes life easier.

He hears from Riley sometimes, it's inconsistent and he's not really expecting it. She's got some growing up to do, and so does he. But it's a different type of growing. He needs to figure out what he wants, and not just stuff like vet school. But things like New York or Austin or Riley or someone else, someone new.

It's the stuff that people usually have problems with that he's not sweating. He knows what he wants (academically and professionally) and he knows how to get there and what he has to do. But things that are supposed to be easy he doesn't have a clue.

He doesn't want to wait for Riley even though he knows he should.

What does he do now?

* * *

It's the Friday morning when she runs into him coming out of the library (she needed to see there was a reference book she could photocopy or if she had to find it on Amazon, he was there was because he just likes to read.); it's not as awkward as it could be-because there is enough room for akward, but besides a few seconds of blank awe in seeing each other for the first time since August, it's fine.

He looks good, tall and tan and she can hear his accent stronger now that he lives back in Texas. It was supposed to be coffee to catch up, but his mom's place is on the way to the coffee shop so he wanted to drop his books off and she hasn't been in his room in forever but it still looks like a boy's room and smells like his aftershave and something else that just screams cowboy.

And maybe she shouldn't have just dropped onto his bed, waiting for him to do whatever, leaning back letting her hair fan out and count the speckles on the ceiling. But maybe he shouldn't have lay down beside her, nudging her hip with his so they can make room on his bed for two.

And the nudging fight was just stupid, because he's on top of her and when she inhales her breasts graze his chest and there's something dark in his eyes that she likes a bit too much.

She has a choice: push him off or pull him closer.

She moves her legs, so his knee is in between her thighs and she brings her hands to rest on his shoulders. It's his choice now.

He kisses her.

Then it's just heat and getting wet and arching her back and gasping. He pulls away from her lips, his hands on her jeans and they get caught on her knees but he's too impatient to wait for to kick them off before he's licking her through the cotton of her panties. She's keening, hand twisted in his hair as she bites her lip. He finds her clit and sucks the nub through the fabric and she can feel him smirk as she follows his mouth because god the stupid cowboy with his mouth and last time he didn't go down on her and she didn't blow him. Last time it was drunk sex than slowly became sober and better as the night went on.

This time she can feel a drumbeat in her chest, and her toes are curling and god why won't he just push her panties away because this is just getting annoying.

When she comes, he's sucking her clit, still fucking her with his fingers and he's got a way too satisfied smirk on his face. She wants to wipe that stupid smirk off his face when she drags him up by his collar-he still has his shirt on, so does she- and kisses him soundly, rolling her hips against his hard-on.

He's like putty in her hands, once she sticks her hand down his boxers stroking him, tracing the veins on his cock before she flips him on his back. She's managed to kick her jeans off, and his are down by his ankles. It's not that hard to find the little foil wrapper in his pocket-she raises an eyebrow because was he expecting to get laid today?- and she rips it with her teeth, unrolls it down his length and sinks down on him.

She hisses and he groans and it's a moment of feeling sated before she moves her hips.

This is much better than coffee.

* * *

When they're finished having sex they get coffee and he almost thinks he should buy it for her, but she laughs in his face. They're not dating, they just banged she reminded him and he needs to put on his big boy pants and order his fancy coffee and then they need to catch up.

He rolls his eyes, but he buys his latte while she gets a dark roast, black, and they sit at the table that was theirs all throughout high school catching up on each other's lives. He hears about her trouble with sculpture and how she keeps on getting clay on her clothes and her roommate called campus security once because she thought there was a gas leak when she was oil painting without the window open.

She's laughing over his story about a keg stand gone wrong when Farkle and Zay make their way to Topanga's and it's like high school all over again, only without a tall brunette laughing at her side, talking about the latest gossip. It feels different and he doesn't know how he feels about it.

Farkle is still hyper-active, but there's an edge to his eyes a bit of hesitation before he speaks-makes him think he interrupted a prof or a lecture one too many times already and gotten chewed out for it. Zay is larger than talking circles about what he's learnt-he's not yet going out on auditions, he won't touch them until he's one hundred percent sure he'll get a call back.

It's an easy repertoire and when they go get sushi, it continues on. Until they start talking about love lives- then it gets uncomfortable. Zay is still relationship-less, he doesn't want to be tied down to anyone and besides he needs to get someone who understands that making out with someone in class because of the lesson doesn't mean he actually like them. Farkle is trying to get over the fact that Smackle broke up with him and not understanding why.

He doesn't know how to explain it to Farkle that the Turkey Dump is a real thing and maybe they just grew apart but it's heartbreak that Farkle has so they talk shit about a sweet girl, remind him that's he a catch-she says she can set him up with some artsy girls who don't do commitment or relationships and that could make him forget about her.

He argues that casual sex isn't the answer-which is very hypocritical of him and she throws him a knowing look. But Farkle isn't him and he doesn't like the idea of doing anything half assed and sex has only been something with a commitment so this is just starting him on a bad road.

Farkle agrees but he still asks for a number because he's lonely and eighteen and if you're not getting laid you're sort of an outcast. Even better to return with a story about a girl with a pierced tongue.

When they all go to their own homes, he's almost forgotten he went down on Maya Hart that morning; at least until he returns to his room and finds she left her thong under his blankets.

He should give it back.

He doesn't.

* * *

December comes and she's making Christmas gifts this year because she is way too broke to afford buying stuff.

So she knits scarves, she tries to find yarn in school colours and when she gets much better she even has their nicknames on them so they're special and personalized.

Riley still isn't home and she really misses her best friend and she has a homesick for a person not a place and Thanksgiving, going back just hurt because Riley wasn't there and if she was there maybe things would be different.

She knows Riley still sort of loves him. It's kind of a backwards because they've broken up and Riley insists it's for real this time, but no one knows if it's actually for real because Riley has a habit of getting jealous and he can't get jealous and it's all very confusing and she fucked her best friend's ex-boyfriend, at least four times. Though it was on two different occasions.

Still it's enough for her to feel guilty and to call and tell Riley everything. Riley doesn't mind-she's too caught up in Germany, and smoking pot for the first time, and learning how to use German. It's weird and she doesn't sound like Riley on the phone.

She wants her to come home and she wants hot chocolate in bed while she begs for forgiveness.

She doesn't get that, so she promises herself that she won't bang him when they're home for Christmas.

She breaks the promise.

* * *

Second semester first year is when college starts eating his ass. He's still doing good, but everything piles up and he just wants to get amazing Chinese food at four in the morning, but there's nowhere in Dallas and he thinks he misses New York but it doesn't matter because he's in Dallas.

Missing something that's gone is useless.

He meets a girl. She's pretty, from Mississippi but grew up in Chicago and Illinois and she calls him 'New Yorker' in an exaggerated Bronx accented. She's studying art history and he thinks she might be fun.

She is-her name is Libby and when he goes to leave after a round or two, she wakes up and looks him in the eye pointedly. He stays.

He hasn't really dated beside Riley and so he's not sure how you date in college. It seems to be Netflix, and sitting in bed doing homework and grabbing coffee when you have time and an erratic sex schedule built around no roommates, and midterms , labs and essays due.

Libby is easy to get along with, she doesn't argue but he thinks sometimes she's biting back what she thinks. She's uncomplicated and nice. She doesn't bother him about their relationship status on Facebook, and doesn't ask him about his exes; he does the same.

When they talk about family, she talks about how her mother died when she was eight and she was sent to live with her aunt in Chicago before her father moved to Illinois when she was twelve. He tells her about why he left Austin and what New York was to him. She doesn't push him and he doesn't push her.

He calls Libby his girlfriend for the first time when he decides he's staying in Dallas over the summer, working a co-op at a veterinary clinic that specializes in farms. It curls around his lips and his stomach drops a bit and she looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

He doesn't use that word anymore, and he doesn't think she's used the word boyfriend ever.

* * *

Riley comes home on June eleventh, with two more bags than she left with, twenty grand in debt, a taste for espresso and a European boy –Austrian-named Elijah. Elijah is tall, with dark hair and kind eyes. He also stands back when Riley is rushed and hugged at the Arrivals gate.

No one really knows what to do with him, because no one can ignore the very pretty, very sparkly ring on Riley's left hand but Corey and Topanga and Auggie are more elated that she's home so discussions of Elijah will wait at least a week.

It takes two days before Topanga will let her daughter leave her sights (and she's only ninety-seven percent positive it's to interrogate Elijah) so she gets her best friend on the fire escape with donuts and iced coffee in hand.

It's like she's never been gone. They don't miss a beat filling in the blank spaces and the pauses where one begins the other ends and maybe she feels very much settled with Riley home.

'I slept with Lucas again,' she confesses to Riley. 'I know I said I wouldn't but I did and I'm sorry.'

'I love him,' Riley says and she thinks she swallowed nail polish remover.

'Lucas?'

'No Elijah,' her best friend corrects. 'But I do love him too. Just not in the same. Everything with Elijah is just…more. Lucas is just subdue.'

She sort of wants to argue, because there is nothing subdue about the way he held her against the wall, fucking her until she knew she couldn't stand straight.

But she's not on moral high ground so she doesn't concede the point.

* * *

He starts smoking pot.

There should be more to the story, but there isn't. He's smoke before-she's wicked precise about how to roll a blunt with the convenience store receipt where they bought the junk they're going to eat after.

But he's never bought it before and it feels like it's brand new.

He rolls the joint on the edge of his desk and lights up.

He might be high but it sort of tastes like her.

* * *

For Fourth of July weekend, there's a road trip planned. Zay, Farkle, Riley, Riley's new European fiancé and her all drive up from New York to see him. Libby was going to come up but once she heard of the plans, she decided to stay in Illinois to give him time with his friends.

He really shouldn't be so okay with it.

They do barbeque and Elijah is very much a fish out of water, but he chimes in when he can and drinks more beer than Zay and does it all without looking like he's not one hundred percent sober.

The fireworks are awesome and he knows Farkle is sending photos to Smackle because they're back together-sort of. Zay's busy wheeling some girl they met that night and grins at them, telling them not to wait up. Riley and Elijah have long since stopped looking at the fireworks and he has Libby in Illinois but he still kisses Maya.

He shouldn't.

He doesn't mean to either, it's just she's on the blanket beside him wearing Zay's jacket because she forgot to pack her own and she looks pretty-beautiful even-and she called him Ranger Rick the entire time, laughing and biting back when he tosses Pancake or Artisté or Ma'am or any of his less used nicknames that never stuck really.

He shouldn't kiss her but she tastes like ketchup from the hamburger earlier and sweet iced tea and she kisses him back.

Back at his place, Riley and Elijah take his roommate's room and Farkle crashes on the couch. She follows him to his bedroom.

It's cheating, it's wrong but it doesn't feel wrong sliding into her. It doesn't feel wrong when she smiles and knots her hand in his hair.

It doesn't feel wrong, falling asleep to her heartbeat.

But that's at night, in the morning, when he wakes up it feels very wrong. He feels very sick and he needs to tell Libby right away.

When he goes to the kitchen, there's Maya in an old shirt of his from high school he gave her years ago and shorts making breakfast laughing at Zay's story.

He doesn't call Libby.

* * *

She's got this second year swing down, and this boy Jordan who studies law. They're casual and it's just something good to have.

Except Thanksgiving is coming and she's almost positive she and Lucas will bang. It's sort of their thing now, celebrate holidays with sex and not talking about it.

She shouldn't be this okay with that.

He goes to Illinois for Thanksgiving. He meets Libby's dad, and her little brother. He also meets Caleb. Caleb is the boy down the street, whose parents was business partners with Libby's dad and were the ones who suggested the move from Mississippi.

Caleb is blonde with blue eyes and he teases Libby, he goads Libby just to watch her lose her temper with a small smile on his face. He's never seen Libby angry before but three seconds after Caleb strolls through the door he's gotten Libby riled up tossing old newspapers at his head which he dodges easily.

He's more than a little sure that Caleb is in love with Libby. And he doesn't actually know why he knows that but Libby spends more time with Caleb-beside Caleb-than she does with him and even when she's mad there's a softness in her eyes, a fondness that seems like she's not mad at all.

Caleb calls Libby 'Ginger,' yanking on her red curls, 'missed you.'

He shouldn't be watching this exchange, because instead of shaking him off, his girlfriend walks closer to Caleb, so close they could share body heat.

He hears her whisper, 'I missed you too.'

* * *

By December Jordan and her don't work out, mainly because their schedules never match. She's busy with helping Riley plan a wedding-Elijah isn't going anywhere- and he's in third year and looking at law schools and prepping for the LSATs.

It's no hard feelings, and they had a good run.

But before she gets on the train back home, she gets her Facebook. Lucas is in a relationship, with a pretty redhead named Libby and one of the comments reads: _it's only been a year to make you guys facebook official._

She's sick to her stomach and cancels the train home. She slept with a guy in a relationship. She knew he was dating someone; it was why he didn't come home for Thanksgiving but she didn't know they had been together the last time they slept together.

She feels vile, wrong and icky and so she calls her mom and claims she has a nasty stomach flu and she doesn't think she'll be home for Christmas.

Roxie and Shawn come up to see her instead.

* * *

Maya deleted her Facebook, as well as all her social medias and she's never been good at returning texts so he loses contact with her. It happens and he shrugs it off.

Libby and him are talking about moving in together.

He's trying, because he really does like Libby and he thinks he might love her and this is normal. He's twenty and he's been with his girlfriend for almost two years, so this is normal and it feels normal but it also should feel big.

This is a big moment, it lets his mom know for sure he's not a virgin because he's about to move in with his girlfriend. But it doesn't.

Caleb helps them move, which he should feel weird about because Caleb is in love with his girlfriend; but so do Zay, and Farkle and Riley and her fiancé.

Maya doesn't come and he asks, Riley's answer is delayed a few beats. 'She's busy. She's in L.A. for a show.'

'Oh. That's cool.' It stings a bit because everyone else seems to know about it, even Elijah who is still around for a wedding in October. But she didn't tell him at all.

* * *

She thinks she'll live in LA. That might be fun. It's hot and traffic sucks but the art is so pretty and the people are so fascinating and if she could just paint them all she would be so happy.

She's at the point in third year where she has to make decisions, real ones. Concrete ones. One of her profs suggest she do her Masters, she has the grade and it might be good because she could teach then.

She's looking at UCLA then, for fine arts maybe surrealism as a focus. She doesn't have to really worry but she has to worry because grad school takes time and it will get her broke but she's majouring in oil painting what else was she expecting?

* * *

Riley's wedding is a disaster.

Riley and Elijah got married and they're happy but Zay's girlfriend dumped him, Farkle proposed to Smackle and Maya hid in the bathroom to avoid seeing him.

He doesn't know why but he's pretty sure it's because of the redhead in the green dress beside him.

He feels clammy, like he's had bad shrimp.

* * *

She might be in love with Lucas. But she might not be either. She might just be so incredibly pissed that he thought it was okay to sleep with her while he had a girlfriend.

It could be a bit of both.

But the thing is it doesn't matter. It can't matter.

Because Lucas was always a bad idea (her best friend's ex-boyfriend, her close friend, the only one who actually listened) and leaving that morning was the best idea because otherwise what would happen?

She was stilling going to Yale, he was still going to Dallas.

Distance is a factor and a friendship is a factor and well she fucked those both because they aren't friends anymore and maybe this is the best idea.

Maybe this is for the best.

* * *

He gets into vet school easily, but everything else isn't easy. He's made his mom angry that he's decided with the vet school he's pretty much one hundred percent staying in Texas, and he'll be back to New York only when he has to.

He's also broken up with Libby. It had to happen because his mother hinted at weddings and he's not ready and he knows Libby is love with Caleb.

He knows because he caught her crying into a wine bottle when she heard Caleb had a girlfriend. He's heard the story and it's very confusing but what he understands is that she and Caleb had crushes on each other as kids, but then Caleb dated someone else when they were in high school and so Libby did the same and they just never managed to get their timing right and it's really stupid but he's not one to judge.

But he's twenty-three, in vet school with no girlfriend and he bought a dog.

* * *

No one cares about twenty-three to twenty-eight.

They grow up, stopping fucking around and give up.

Not everyone is an epic love story.

It had to happen right?

* * *

It's at the opening of her show in New York at the Met does he see her again. He hasn't talked to her since he was twenty-one, and he's okay with it.

It's not like they were in love, they had sex. It was confusing blurring physical with affectionate and he knows now, that twenty year old Lucas didn't love twenty year old Maya; she just got him. She just got the loneliness and the growing up part was there too. They needed something solid to focus on and they weren't solid.

It was doomed from the start and it was only sex.

Still he's here because Zay's new film he's directed is getting its debut at Cannes but before that Zay wants them all there to see it and Maya's show opens this weekend so it just worked out.

Riley and Elijah's kid is running around getting chased by Topanga when he sees Maya smirking behind the bar, acting as the bartender instead of the artist.

She always said people were more honest when they were drunk.

'I'll have a beer please.' He holds out a ten dollar bill for the overpriced drink. 'Nice dress.'

'Are you a light beer sort of guy Cowboy?' she asks smirking, taking the ten and give him three dollar bills in exchange, sliding a dark beer over the bar as he shuddered. 'Thanks.'

It's a good sort of silence as people filter past the bar into the exhibit.

'Are you going in?' she asks, when he makes no move to leave the bar after forty-five minutes.

'Are you?' he gives her an easy grin, one that looks well-worn and well used. She doesn't see a ring on his finger, which is odd because he's got the easy going charm that drops panties like fruit flies.

But then again it's been eight years, he could be gay. Could be anti-marriage. She doesn't know, she doesn't keep track of his life.

She kept track of Zay-he's more of a director than an actor these days, winning awards and getting up there. The new Spike Lee they're calling him. She kept track of Farkle, only because he's like a fungi and she loves her mushrooms. She keeps track of Riley (and Elijah and their daughter) because keeping track of Riley is like knowing the days of the week. She just does.

'I don't like watching people look at my art.'

'Then I guess not.' Lucas settles back into the bar, and nods for a second beer. 'I mean if art all comes from the artist why look at it when I can just talk to the artist?'

She stares at him, with disbelief than throws back her head and laughs, silver bells filling the room. 'That was a line. That was a bad line.'

He shrugs, unashamed. 'So? It's working. You're talking to me.'

'Of course I am dumbass,' she snorts. 'We're friends.'

'Are we?' he asks and she supposes it's supposed to be dramatic. They haven't seen each other in years, don't know what's going on each other's lives.

'I don't think so anymore,' Maya says honestly. 'Do you want to be?'

He considers it; he really does. His memories of her are some of his favourite but he doesn't think they can be friends. It was just sex, but he's not thinking about other girls he slept with when he was twenty the way he thinks of her.

'Want to be more instead?' Lucas asks.

* * *

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